Now let’s talk about democrazy. Some international organizations include Indonesia into“newly democratic country” criteria.

I have been living in the transitions of democratic system with full consideration. I remember how it felt to live in a country with only one TV channel, without bad news, then I lived the day when I got the questions about the human right violations in East Timor without ever knowing that it did happen, I remember how some seniors disappeared from my campus since they were suspected to be part of subversive movements, I still remember the day when the students rushed to the street and yelled for democracy, I worked for election observation missions to observe how the elections in 2004 were conducted in the standard of democracy, then nowadays I see people destroy things without accepting any blames in the name of democracy…

I felt fine to live in the first democracy concept that I knew. All I knew until I was 15 was that democracy means the freedom to practice what we believe. When the democratic countries at that time said that the Indonesians lived in dictatorship, I used to be proud of the freedom that we, the Indonesians had to practice our religions. I am still proud of it until now. I haven’t found any other country that provides public holidays for all religious feasts. In Indonesia we have many religious holidays, Eid El Fitri, Eid El Adha, Mauleed, or Isra’ Mi’raj for the moslems, Christmas and Easter for the Chirstians, Galungan for the Hindus, Vesak for the Buddhist…I believe that it’s great. I see that even the countries that always say that they are democratic don’t have this kind of respect.

I believe that some people might say that they don’t need those holidays because of their secularism principles. But hey, if those democratic countries would like to be 100% secular to be democratic, why do they have holidays for Easter and Christmas?

I remember how people from old democratic countries like to criticize how Indonesians deal with “minority groups”. They heard, I think impartial information about Indonesia, and they don’t mirror themselves to the minority groups exist in their own country. Somehow even I asked them to clarify the definitions of minority, discrimination and injustice when they started to judge. Somehow they countered back by mentioning that I don’t understand anything about the discrimination due to my tribe-which is the major tribe in Indonesia, and my religion, which is the major religion in Indonesia… but they can’t see it as black and white analogy… I had the experiences of being discriminated when I was in the community that the outsiders call as “minority”…

I was proud of the peaceful country where I lived when the world outside said that Indonesian military breached the human right concepts in some of their missions… In one side I feel ashamed and sorry of it. But in the other side, hello, world… is there any military institutions, or any government, that wouldn’t react frontally to beat the militias? Open up our eyes… and we can see that even some countries’ military institutions massacre the people in other countries to save their own nations….Spies and intelligence agencies are everywhere even in more modern countries they are well-equipped with modern infrastructures to smell the possibilities of subversive actions…So which one should we call as democratic countries now?

If democracy is considered only as the people’s voice… are we all being heard?Do we all live in impartiality?Do we all feel the freedom?Do we obtain feel the fairness?Do we all have access to the media?Do we all get the universal franchise in any fields of life?….. and many others questions to remind that democracy is actually an absurd concept. It is too narrow to derive democracy in several tiny (and sometimes insignificant) points.Democracy is the system with conditional exceptions. There are always grey intersections in any ideal concepts, where they have to melt somehow in some values of other concepts, where even the right wings are not 100% right and the left wings are not 100% left. There is no place that can adopt 100% concept that can run well in other place. There must be exceptions. Above all, the most important thing is that the people feel comfortable with any concepts declared by the states.

Maybe I misunderstood the democracy. But what is pathetic in my eyes is when democracy becomes the excuses for undemocratic actions. I’m tired of the physical or white collar brutality performed in the name of democracy. So let me call it democrazy to represent the out of control, out of mind democracy…

And now, let’s talk about the LOW enforcement that replaces the LAW enforcement. It’s really tiring to figure it out again. Bribery, corruption, nepotism are everywhere. Some significant laws and regulations haven’t been made here, while the insignificant and hypocrite law is regulated. It’s confusing to see it, and I don’t feel secure in this state. I still see many corruptors who stole billions of people’s money live in wealth while people who just stole a bike lived in jail for months. I have no other comment: the law enforcement is still in the low standard.

I collected some books written when my country was in transitions that we call as reforms. I saw so many hopes there.

Now I have only three examples of minimum pairs, but they are already very complicated.I just wish that I still alive when one day I would hear people say, “Indonesia is a FUNtastic country!”

First of all, I must ensure you that there is nothing wrong with the three terms I wrote as the title.

Some many terms that sound similar to some certain terms are created to state the states in this country. In linguistic studies we call them as minimum pairs, where the sounds are similar but they have different meanings.

It would be good if the terms used to state the states in my country are the minimum pairs of “fantastic” and “FUNtastic” that sounds positive. Unfortunately, in contrary to that expectation, at the time being the most popular terms are “bureaucrazy” instead of “bureaucracy”, “democrazy” instead of “democracy”, and the latest term I discovered tonight was “low enforcement” instead of “law enforcement”.

Bureaucrazy represents the craziness of bureaucratic procedures that any people in Indonesia must experience to get any legality. Allow me to quote a report from Jakarta Post published in the first week of September: …Indonesia remains one of the most difficult places in the world to do business, and it may be getting worse, the latest report from the World Bank shows.Indonesia was cited for reducing the time and cost needed to start a business, but progress on other issues -- registration and licensing, tax payment, employment, trade, financing and contract enforcement -- remained almost stagnant.

While it now takes only 97 days -- from 151 days -- to set up an enterprise in Indonesia, and at a reduced cost of 86.7 percent -- from 101.7 percent -- of the country's per capita income, it still takes almost a year to get through the tangle of licensing.

It also takes another month's time each for paying taxes and clearing customs, as well as almost two years to settle labor issues. Hum, see, how long can it be to settle something up in Indonesia? Not only in business, even just to get married we must have a bunch of letters and submit another bunch of citizenship documents…

However, the government promises to cut off the long chain and reform the system into the simpler one. Hope it works well.

It’s a hot evening, and I feel lazy. Something in my head said that I must do something groovy to lite up my mood. I must play “Sunny”.

I don’t know since when exactly I started to fall in love to the groove of classic disco. It has been a huge curiosity that tonight I try to recall my memory.

I try to look back to my past and I found that maybe it started since I was an unborn baby. My father loved to play Boney M in beautiful weekends since I haven’t been born, continued until I grew up as a little girl, and until some days before he passed away.

Whenever I listen to Boney M’s songs my head is filled with the image of warm sunshine, the days when I saw my father tapped his feet to the rhythm with smile on her face. :-)

I love Boney M, Quincy Jones, Earth Wind and Fire, and many other disco legends. However for me the most inspiring disco music is First Be a Woman by the Disco Queen, Gloria Gaynor. I feel that she says clearly how a woman should be.

As for Boney M that I’m listening now, I feel that Rasputin casts his spell on me to move and smile. I feel that when Sunny is played I see the brighter day. Ma Baker rhythm brought me to the dark but groovy sides of Chicago...

Most of the classic disco songs can bring the smile back on my face, in any moods. I used to escape to the production room when I felt exhausted after the long working hour just to play some pieces of disco, put the headphone on my ears, closed my eyes and danced to the music. What a perfect relieve!

"Smoke Kills."This is the simple sentence that I like to utter whenever I see the people I know smokes around me. Not only when I saw a friend smoked on the balcony in chilling winter, but everytime I have the chance to say it.

No to be hypocryte, as some people might have seen me smoking some years ago, but really, I do hate smoking NOW.

I used to smoke when I worked in a smoking community, and my jobs required the tight deadlines and overtimes. The nicotin used to wake me up when I needed to prepare a program outline until late after midnights... even it felt horrible in my lung, my throat, and my body odor :p

Later in the last 2 years I learned that in my mother's family there is a strong tendency of getting the cancer. An auntie passed away in 2005 due to the lung cancer, another auntie had her uterus cut due to the uterus cancer, a cousin died due to the breast cancer, and my grandma left this beautiful world after 2 years suffered from leukimia...

So, I felt stupid as I realised how I gave the chance for that deadly disease to grow in my body when I was smoking.

Then finally, out of the reasons of horrible feeling in my lung, my throat, and at my body odor... I decided to quit smoking totally. I don't want to regret my life some years after now, and I don't want to feel the pains like what my relatives felt before their last day.

As a consequence some friends mocked at me.. but I don't care. I would mock at myself more bitterly if one day I got a cancer somewhere in my body. I started to remove the ash trays from my house, even I wouldn't prepare it for any guests.

I feel also the stronger rejection toward tobbaco products. I tried my best not to work for any events sponsored by tobacco products...

But... today.... I was involved in an event in my campus sponsored by a huge cigarette company...I didn't know it at the beginning. All I know was that my professors asked me to be the co-host of a music event held by a TV station that was aimed to promote my faculty... But this morning as I arrived at the venue, I saw the huge sign of that company at the backdrop... :((

The worst of all was, the company opened a booth to sell their cigarette product in front of my campus!

I realized that they have big budget that might enhance the students' activities... but somehow my heart said that it's not ethical to bring the poisson in campus atmosphere... I was disappointed that today I worked with something that kills.

I am not an assertive person to say "no" frontally, especially because I knew that there was no other co-host prepared to change my position as the host that represented the campus...

I was about to yell at the audiences, "Hey ya, you know that this good event is sponsored by a cigarette company... But let me remind you an important thing: SMOKE KILLS!"

*wondering what would happen if I did that...:p*But really, I mean it: SMOKE KILLS!

Nih contohnya:19/09/2006Technical Meeting.Venue: the studio of a local TV channelScheduled at 14:00

The producer said that in 19 Sept morning he would re-confirm the time line. In fact I got no phone calls! I tried to call him, but his phone was off...

So, I arrived 15 minutes late because I took the wrong route. But, among 7 expected attendants, only 3 came on time...and the last meeting attendant arrived at... 15:40! tsk-tsk-tsk...

20/09/2006The ShowVenue: Faculty of Letters Diponegoro UniversityScheduled to be started at 10:00MC was expected to arrive at 09:30, the latest.Wardrobe was expected to be ready at 09:30Merchandise for games show was expected to be ready at 09:00

So, I arrived at 09:15.But, the other MC arrived at... 10:20 !Wardrobe arrived at 09:50Merchandise hum... arrived at 10:15Event started at 10:50...

Yesterday I had my thesis exam.The first exam in the morning was perfect. I was satisfied as there were no significant corrections but the changes of the capital letters that I used.But, the second exam, with my own academic supervisor was a HELL.

I did not expect that horrible situation, and I was not ready for the heart-breaking statements. Everybody around me knows how hard it was for me to finish my thesis, and how I tried to work on it between my trips to different places, my jobs, and my personal problems....

I took my thesis VERY SERIOUSLY. It has been my baby for months, especially since I went back from France in May. I did my best, spending hours and hours to find the reading materials in internet, as well as buying a bunch of books to read.

Linguistics has been far away from my real life, but I tried to love it, as much as when I decided to take it as my major in my faculty.

I gained the progress on my thesis step by step under the very kind and serious guidance from my thesis supervisor, and we discussed what I wrote a lot. Not only once or twice, but it was really a lot, with the literatures around us during the discussion to prove that I used the correct theories and applied them well in my research... (thank you very much, Pak Agus...)

BUT, yesterday evening, someone who I trusted to be very supportive academic supervisor in the last five years dumped my hard work like a trash. She JUDGED, that as if the words and sentences I wrote in some parts of the thesis were NOT MY STYLE. It didn't represent MY PERSONALITY. And, the most striking statement was, "are you sure that these are your own words?"

IMAGINE...She mentioned those prejudices only because she thought that I am a straight forward person when I talk!

For God's sake... she knew NOTHING about me and she said she was surprised to find that I wrote "flowery words"...

I might look like a straight forward person when I spoke in my talkshows, in the meetings, in my acquitances with the people I respect, e.g. lecturers.

But personally I am not exactly like that. It's just part of my journalistic profession...it was part of my politeness standard, where I even very hesitate to call my lecturers, worrying if I disturbed their time...

Her statement hurt me deeply. She doubted my quality, she doubted my honesty, she doubted my capability, and the worst of all, she doubted my personality.

Let's just ask my family, my bestfriends or my friends. They would all give the same testimonial that I am such a talkative person with many expressions. Yes, I am a very expressive person. Added with the fact that I love to write, not only in Indonesian but also in English, French and even Javanese, added that I was twice becoming the semi-finalist in an international poetry contest, that I have been hanging out with people from different nationalities and culture, that I spent many times working in international surroundings, plus the fact that I also write the fictions, published by teenage mags and tabloid... it's so ridiculous, but also so painful to hear her accusation... :-((

I cried a lot after my exam. Damn...

An academic work, as well as professional work, shouldn't be taken personally. Thus I think a subjective verbs of feeling are not appropriate to JUDGE the quality of a work.But she DID use it, by saying, "It's really TIRING to read your thesis."

I said, "excuse me?" and hoped that she would change her statement. But no. She repeated the statement again. "It's tiring to read your thesis."And I asked her why. She said, "because you talked too much about something that is NOT RELATED to your research".But in my opinion, how would people understand what I wrote if they didn't have any idea about the organization and the missions that made them publishing political statements?

I wonder why someone who should have been a senior lecturer didn't use more appropriate statement for an academic project like "your thesis doesn't meet the standard of academic writing". I would be able to accept it much better than the statement of "it's tiring to read your thesis"...

Not only that... she also doubted the quality of younger lecturers. It was proven when she recommended me to meet lecturer from Indonesian language department, to clarify the quality of my analysis on English-Indonesian translation. I asked her whether I could discuss with a young lecturer I know well... but she said "no, not that young lecturer please. You know... I can't really believe that he could give you good information. I want you to meet the senior. And I will check whether you met him or not after you revise your thesis."

Again. The way she explained showed how she doubted someone's honesty...

And maybe the best statement that she made of all the examination process was, "I am a bit disappointed of your work."

I went out of the room, angry, sad, upset. And finally I cried after I had time to meet my thesis supervisor. He was the one who knew how I worked on my thesis, how it was corrected, how it progressed... And I feel thankful that he is such a positive person who understands the students well...

I am very disappointed that I had this horrible experience by the end of my academic year.I am a person who respects the values of CREDIBILITY. I would like to shout at her, saying that I was not as bad as what she thought. I wanted to condemn her for humiliating me... yet, she is a person who has the power to decide the final result of my study...

It's not fair for me. It's not fair for me. It's not fair for me....!!!!!

Loenpia, or the spring roll, ou roulleau de printemps, is definitely delicious. It's the famous typical food of Semarang, and I love it!

I discovered another delicious meaning of Loenpia here in my hometown. I found loenpia.net, Semarang bloggers community...

I encouraged myself to apply as one of "tukang loenpia" (our term for "member"- literally it means "loenpia maker") last month, and I found nice people there. ;-) They are very helpful, and they accept a totally amateur blogger like me :">

It always feel good when we meet people with similar interests. Not only that we love to blog, but we also have the same dream of popularize the internet based technology to the community.

Supported by tukang loenpia who have strong IT backgrounds, loenpia.net offers trainings and workshops for any groups of communities who would like to learn more about internet. Voluntary spirit is hihly required in this mission.

Funtastically enough, those IT experts in loenpia give us, the amateurs, chances to assist them in the trainings. :-) The positive atmosphere has been constructing nice relationship and friendship between us. Girls are also warmly welcomed in this community, and we, the girls feel comfortable here...

Not only that we work on our hobby, but we also share the knowledge, laughters, jokes, CDs, and very often, photos! :-) We love to be photographed, anywhere, anytime, anyhow. :"> Thanks to Fany, the sweet girl, who always brings her camera then shares all her pics with us... the photos here are her courtesy.

The muslim tukang loenpia always take time to pray together too, even we are in the middle of busy training sessions. Maybe we are inspired by the statement written on this banner: hahahaha... :-)

So, that was a little story of my new discovery. A "delicious" community named loenpia.net. :-)

Linguistics studies are my majors, yet to finalize my study I had to pass the comprehensive exams on English literatures too.

So I learned some old scripts of Oedipus Rex, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet to get ready to answers the questions on classic dramas. As for the contemporary drama, I picked the script of "The Death of A Salesman" written by Arthur Miller to learn at the beginning of this week since my examiner said that I must prepare myself for a discussion on contemporary drama. Thus I red also some analysis on it, but shortly I would just say that it touched me for the representations of human characters and life's ups and downs.

The flashbacks are also interesting. How men can't ever predict their future and how their life would be, and how in hypocracy man can be a perfect figure in front of the other's eyes... It is true that even Willy Loman, the salesman is just an ordinary man, unsuccesfull, even powerless figure, yet he is no less worthy than the tragic heroes in the other tragic scenes. He was a perfect father in the eyes of his sons, and the tragic flaw brought him misfortune.

At the end, the tragedy raised the pity, bittersweet feeling and the fear. Me, I was terrified too! Life is just so unpredictable. It would be a misfortune if life around us ends in tragedy, as the one happened in Loman's family...

En Lundi le Septembre 11, j'ai eu un concours de presentateurs pour le telejournal en Anglais. J'ai pensee que je suis le plus agee de les autres participants, mais... a-ha, regardez les photos et repondez ce question: qui a 27 ans? ;-) On Monday, September 11, I had an English Newscaster Competition. I thought that I was the oldest compared to the other participants, but...a-ha, take a look at the photos and answer the question: who is 27 year old?

Prof. Eko Budihardjo was the rector of my university. Many students admired him, as he's such an easy-going personality in his smartness. :)

I always note down interesting part of his speech - where he always puts interesting advices that are easy to remember. So, 2 days ago I joined a newscaster competition, and he was invited to commence it by his opening remarks.

He said something that I will always remember about "5 Ps" that we should notice when we're preparing ourselves for a competition:

Brum-brum... I hit the road on my black honda. Extremely hot afternoon. But nice songs played in my head. Favorite songs that I love so much, the ones I love to play in the afternoon like this. Mundo Kane's "New York Afternoon"!

Then when I turned to a shady road, the song changed into Randy Crawford's "Look Who's Crying Now".. dunno why... but I've just realized how I miss that oh-so rarely played songs...

Then I also miss Ai No Corrida, Malibu, Twilight World, Lalala Means I Love You, Rio de Janeiro Blue... and regret myself: why didn't I record them when I was working in radio?

Hm, I think that was because I respect the intellectual rights..but.. gosh, it's so difficult to find some of those songs in store now. haou...:(( It's torturing me when I miss them like now...

Many people condemn when they mournMany people are in enormous anger when they are in grieveSome people plan to revenge when they crySome people can turn into a cruel creature when their hearts are brokenMany people gain their unpredictable power when they feel powerless

The survivors always remember how it felt to be the victims,murders took place in the name of the deceased,and many wars start just right after the funerals...